This is exactly what I was looking for as my daughters new 20" bike has a horrible chainline in the lower gears and you can't roll the thing backwards more than a foot before it runs the chain down the cassette and gets all bound up. The only thing I don't quite understand is what happens to the "extra" positions in the shifter? My daughters bike is a Shimano 1x10 so if I find a 10 speed cassette that has say 2 loose cogs and I leave them out, find a spacer and install it behind the cassette, how does the shifter behave? What will my daughters experience with this modified drivetrain be? Am I trading one problem/difficulty for another? For all the talk of making bikes specifically designed for kids (low weight, grip diameters, crank lengths, Q factors, etc.) why install a drivetrain that is so inefficient and that can contribute to a poor experience? Is it just the result of being at the mercy of what adult drivetrain components are available? What is the ultimate solution here short of custom everything?
Jan. 6, 2023, 9:41 p.m. - RudyWayne
This is exactly what I was looking for as my daughters new 20" bike has a horrible chainline in the lower gears and you can't roll the thing backwards more than a foot before it runs the chain down the cassette and gets all bound up. The only thing I don't quite understand is what happens to the "extra" positions in the shifter? My daughters bike is a Shimano 1x10 so if I find a 10 speed cassette that has say 2 loose cogs and I leave them out, find a spacer and install it behind the cassette, how does the shifter behave? What will my daughters experience with this modified drivetrain be? Am I trading one problem/difficulty for another? For all the talk of making bikes specifically designed for kids (low weight, grip diameters, crank lengths, Q factors, etc.) why install a drivetrain that is so inefficient and that can contribute to a poor experience? Is it just the result of being at the mercy of what adult drivetrain components are available? What is the ultimate solution here short of custom everything?